★the star that stands in the breast of the Lion (regulusblack) wrote in incompletedata, @ 2018-08-28 12:15:00 |
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What happened between the cabin and the room Regulus found himself in now was a bit of a blur. He remembered getting into his bunk, and then being torn from his blankets by something. And then -- then he woke up somewhere else. Everything in the room was damp. Water pooled around Regulus' hands as he sat up in the bed, like when he moved his weight he was pressing into the surface of a saturated sponge. Water seemed to bleed from the ceiling, running down the vertical stripes of the wallpaper; creating a symphony of sounds as it dropped onto carpets, tapestries and wood floors. There were sections of wall where the plaster was exposed, the water even managing to errode the materials down to the narrow strips of wood beneath. For a long while, Regulus stayed shivering in the bed. He thought that maybe if he was still long enough, he would just melt away with everything else in the room. After Sirius had left, Regulus used to sleep there. The same way he used to when he was very young and storms, either in the form of thunder or lightning or -- more frequently -- the storms caused by Walburga Black's torrent moods, sent him to the cover of his brother's bed. Even Sirius' empty bed felt safer than his own. It made him feel less alone. He'd flip through Sirius' abandoned magazines or the old school notes that he'd copied off of Remus or one of hi other friends and he tried to feel something other than bitterness. He'd blamed James Potter and the others for convincing his brother to abandoned him, at first, and that had led him to make a number of decisions he'd come to regret. But as the years withered away he realised that Sirius hadn't been taken from him. He'd gotten out. He'd escaped in a way that only one of them could have ever managed, and he couldn't resent him for that. If anything, he had to protect Sirius in order to make sure that the sacrifices they'd both made didn't end up being in vain. A sudden noise cut through the rhythmic sound of the water: a sharp bang on the locked bedroom door, followed by a violent shake of the knob. His mother's shrieks followed the assault on the door. "I know he's in there! I know you're hiding him. I know it, I know it, I know it!" The banging on the door continued, and the damp, warped wood of the frame did not promise to hold the hinges for much longer. Regulus got up from the bed, only noticing when it clattered to the floor that his wand had been resting on the comforter the entire time. When he stooped to pick it up, he noticed that the closet door on the other side of the room was very slightly ajar. Pretruding from the small crack between it and the frame was the long, curious snout of a large black dog. Walburga was right: Regulus was hiding him. Water began to pour from rapidly down the walls, as Walburga continued to scream on the other side of the door. The hinges buckled. The ceiling cracked and lifted a few inches to allow water to gurgle into the room like it fell from an overflowing bathtub. "I'll kill him! I'll kill the both of you, you ungrateful little cun--" Regulus gripped his wand, raising it towards the door without thinking as the hinges finally burst. He knew the shape in the doorway was his mother, even if she was completely obscured by billowing black lace veils. Green-grey mold seemed to crawl up the folds of her green satin gown. As she reached out her ivory white arm, fingers curved like claws towards her children, Regulus could see the black slotches of mold, like putred constillations, covered her arms. "Avada Kedavra!" Regulus shouted, his wand spitting magic towards the spectre of his mother. She screamed, and the entire room was suddenly bathed in a warm, green light. |